Tucked into a small corner on the ‘My Study’ page (on myUnihub), lost among menus is a link, innocuously named ‘Online software tutorials’ that grants access to 1000’s of hours of free educational content.
Don’t feel bad if you’re just finding this out now. It took me 3 years and a friend telling me about it 5 times before I ‘discovered it’.
This is all brought to you by ‘LinkedIn Learning’ – an online skill sharing platform, much like Udemy or Skillshare.
So, what can you expect after spending some time on the site?
Upon your first time creating an account you’ll be asked to select a few of your favourite topics. This is so the sites algorithm can better recommend courses it thinks you’ll be interested in. However, you’ll still have access to everything through the menus.
The courses mostly fall under 3 main categories.
- Business courses: Containing courses covering – marketing, customer service, accounting, leadership, and anything else related to networking or running a business.
- Creative courses: Everything from sketching, to motion graphics and audiovisual production.
- Technology courses: Here you can learn a variety of programming languages for coding and web design. With even courses covering iOS and Android app development.
Length of the courses vary wildly, ranging from 10 minutes to 60 plus hours; with most falling between the 1 to 4 hour range. The positive of this being that there are plenty courses that cover subjects at varying levels of intensity. The negative being there are many courses that differ just as wildly in quality. So keep in mind it may take a bit of time to filter through to get to the good ones – but they do exist.
As for course recommendations, that’s going to be completely dependent on your interests. I worked through 2 courses this week and skimmed through a 3rd during my research for this review. Firstly, for pleasure, I explored my artistic side with Amy Wynne taking her sketching course ‘Drawing Foundations: Figure’, which I found greatly enjoyable.
Secondly, I took the courses ‘Freelancing Tips’ with Jay Clouse, and ‘Communication Tips’ with Tatiama Kolovou and Brenda Baily. Being self-employed and developing a business myself I thought these 2 courses would be a treasure trove of information. However, they didn’t prove as rewarding as the first.
And therein lies the problem. Much of the information is surface level. In fact anyone with even a little experience in the relevant area will struggle to find much use for those related courses. But in no way am I concluding that it’s all a waste of time, quite the opposite actually.
LinkedIn Learning is a great resource for the young entrepreneur looking to pick up skills to DIY everything themselves. Or for the curious mind searching for its next creative outlet.
I originally wanted to conclude by lauding the site as a great resource for improving your employability and brightening your future career path. Instead I’ll be more honest. If you’re going into it to pad your CV and make yourself more attractive to employers – you’re going to be disappointed.
But if you go looking for self-development – perhaps in the way of something creative, or to gain a clearer understanding of something that’s eluded you – then you’re sure to find what you’re looking for.
To access LinkedIn Learning first navigate to the ‘My Study’ page on myUnihub. The link titled ‘Online learning tutorials’ should be listed under the ‘Software tab’. If you experience and trouble with this don’t hesitate to contact UniHelp at: https://unihub.mdx.ac.uk/support/unihelp
So, go on; what will you learn first?
Op-ed article written by: Panayiotis Panteli